The South Shore Needs a Venue: Part 2
In the second of three installments, Brian Buchanan explores the music landscape of Staten Island and advocates for a venue to serve South Shore audiences.
Long has the North Shore been Staten Island’s creative home base, our creative north star. The evidence is overwhelming:
The Wu-Tang Clan—Staten Island’s most legendary music group—hails from the North Shore
Staten Island Shakespearean Theatre and Spotlight Theatre regularly hold play productions at the Staten Island Playhouse at Empire Outlets
The St. George Theatre is Staten Island’s largest, and one of the only, proscenium-style venues which routinely hosts comedians, movies, and holiday productions
Hub 17 in Stapleton is a literal hub for all kinds of creative activity, from its art galleries to play readings
MakerSpace NYC on Front Street is an independent organization for builders, tinkerers, and even broadcasters (through their subsidiary MakerPark Radio)
I could go on and on, but the point remains: the North Shore is fertile ground for the island’s thespians, painters, raconteurs—artists of every stripe. The North Shore is also the bedrock for Staten Island’s music scene:
Mother Pug's Saloon is a most beloved dive bar, hosting shows both inside and in its back lot
The Hop Shoppe holds regular jam sessions and local shows
Each year, Flagship Brewery holds a Battle of the Bands competition
Musicians play the Stapleton Saturdays block parties each summer, as well as a fall festival held in Westerleigh Park—West Fest
DJs regularly spin at Hub 17 and serve as event MCs
The Newhouse Center at Snug Harbor has served as the grounds for songwriter showcases
These spots and more—together with a litany of bars and restaurants—are proof that Staten Island’s musicians have both the space and opportunity to routinely kick out the jams.
For those living above the Staten Island Expressway, I (jealously) imagine this to be a boon. Those of us residing below this demarcation must always calculate the costs of crossing this most unholy boundary. To echo Secretary Buttigieg, time is the biggest factor to contend with. For instance, the SIR can be a time-saver and a time-burner in equal regard; sure, you might cut out time sitting in traffic, but it’s of little virtue when you’re stuck waiting a half hour or more for your train to arrive in the first place. What about the bus? Between route planning, transfers, and chaotic schedules, crossing the island can be an ordeal, made only an inch easier with dedicated bus lanes and real-time service updates.
Music events (“shows”) often run late into the evening, when public transportation options all but evaporate. Consider this best-case scenario: a Saturday show at Flagship Brewery—located a stone’s throw from the Tompkinsville Train Station—wraps up at about 10:45 PM (a charitable estimation). The next available southbound train arrives at 11:09 PM. Assuming it comes on time, I would make it to the Arthur Kill Station at roughly 11:45 PM. After a fifteen-minute walk, I’d make it home Saturday night Sunday morning, just after midnight. To quote noted existentialist philosopher Charles Brown, “Good grief!”
Nine times out of ten, taking my car to a show is the best option; that does not make it a good option. I can either 1) drudge up and down Hylan or Richmond with all their stop lights or 2) drive the full lengths of the West Shore, Staten Island, and Dr. M.L.K Jr. Expressways. If—and that’s a big IF—there is no construction or maintenance, the roundtrip clocks in at well over an hour. There is no reprieve once you arrive at the venue, either, because everyone’s battling for the same few precious parking spots. Performers often don’t have a choice at all; driving is their only recourse when they have to supply their equipment, namely amps and instruments. Like, there is simply no convenient or practical way to bring a bass amp onto a city bus. I’d rather eat glass.
Folks can carpool, of course, and many venues offer house drum kits and amps for bands to use. More often than not, bands will work out deals beforehand to share and split gear at local shows. Put simply, the problems caused by the challenge of traversing Staten Island can be mitigated somewhat for audience members and performers alike. There is another choice, sad as it is, and that is to simply not book or go to shows at all. I can empathize with those who give up the hassle of trying to regularly schlep across the island for music. I’ve been there, and I suspect I am far from the only one.
I get that this all sounds like a lot of millennial-ass complaining, and you know what? Guilty as charged. But I want to be crystal clear: despite the struggle to stay connected with Staten Island’s music scene, I am happy to do it. I suck it up. I get in my car, I sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and I park lightyears away from the venue. If anything, I enjoy it, and I do it because on balance the headaches are worth it. I’ve got to be one of the biggest advocates for Staten Island’s music right now; I simply never shut the fuck up about how good we have it and how spoiled I feel. The scene is, at present, ON FIRE and we’d stack up quite well against all the other boroughs combined. And the reason I am writing all of this out in excruciating detail is because a thought has begun to fester. After years and years of putting up with worse and worse travel conditions on the island, I’ve lost faith that our transit networks will decelerate their deterioration or—heaven forbid!—actually improve. The truth is: there will never be a quick, easy, or efficient way to bring myself to the music.
But… what if—what if!—there was some way to bring the music to me?
Part III
The South Shore of Staten Island needs a music venue. And I don’t want to be mistaken: when I say we need a music venue, what I mean is a music venue. That raises some basic questions, such as: “What exactly is a music venue? What does it entail? What would a reasonable person expect it to have?” When I was sussing out what I wanted to say for this section, I kept fantasizing about the IDEAL SOUTH SHORE VENUE. I started compiling a list I’m calling…
THE CHARTER™
FIRST, the focus of a music venue should be on music. I know, I can hear you all shouting through my computer screen a collective, “Duh???” This is what I mean: there could be drinks served, but it wouldn't be a bar; there could be food served, but it wouldn’t be a restaurant; there might be events and parties and the odd sweet 16, but it wouldn’t be an event hall; there’d be poetry readings and stage productions and comedy nights, but it wouldn’t be a theater. A music venue would be for music, first and firstmostly. For musicians, for bands, for singers & songwriters. A place to crank amps and bang drums.
SECOND, the ideal venue would have a stage. A big stage. And by big, I’m talking elevation and enough floor space to make people say, “There’s more room up there than my entire apartment!” When bands play on a cramped stage, we bump into each other and knock our instrument’s headstocks on mic stands. Nobody can move about or groove. It sucks. I’d honestly rather play on the floor than be sardined on a small stage. After all, musicians… we can be a sensitive, temperamental bunch. We need our space. Therefore, the ideal music venue needs a big stage.
THIRD, the PA system needs to shake bricks off the wall. The one simple trick of mic’ing the kick and snare drums (promoters HATE him!) can take a band's live sound from good to great. Imagine the relief you feel when your sinuses clear after taking allergy medicine; it’s the audio version of that. More importantly, 99.9% of people just want to hear the singer, and being able to comprehend a lead vocalist through a powerful PA can make or break a gig. For real, if I had a nickel every time the light in my eyes went out whenever someone told me, “You all sounded good, but I couldn’t really hear the vocals,” I could afford the Frank Lloyd Wright house on Lighthouse Hill.
ANYWAY, that’s it, that’s THE CHARTER™. Those are my wildest dreams. I mean, I, of course, thought of one to two hundred other accouterments: the place would splurge on good sound treatment; we’d need lights, and the lights need to accentuate the aesthetic of the joint; the location would be algorithmically derived by MIT scientists, somewhere on the South Shore or Mid-Island that’s within reasonable walking distance to the train and some bus routes; there would be plenty of parking, if only so the bands could load in and out without the worry of getting towed or ticketed; there would be big TVs and a green room and—
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that all this—even THE CHARTER™—is bullshit. All that stuff would be nice, but they’re just wants. What would this venue need, though? In my heart of hearts, the ideal South Shore venue would only require two ‘things.’ The first is a policy that would allow, on occasion, for THE YOUTH to rock out. In music scene verbiage, we’d say that this spot would host ‘all ages’ shows (and I’ll get to why this matters in my final installment). But the biggest need, in my honest opinion, is a reputation. A welcoming and inclusive spot with a reputation that, on any given night, patrons might hear some of the best music that Staten Island has to offer. And I don’t believe this would be hard to achieve at all, because we have so! much! good! to share. I’m not naïve, I know there’s much more to running a venue than that. But this feels like a good place to start—a mission statement, an ideological foundation. Beyond that? It’s all Nonna’s gravy sauce gravy.
Brian Buchanan is a physics teacher by day and, by night, a masked vigilante versatile artist. His passions span the realms of football, guitar pedals, & the law of large numbers. Brian finds beauty in the patterns of the universe, and his artistic soul is reflected in both his music and writing, where he weaves melodies and stories that touch the heart. At home, he finds inspiration and comfort in the company of two pups: Boo & Jem. Brian's gentle spirit and insights leave an enduring mark on everyone he meets (hopefully!!), making Shaolin a more beautiful place through his diverse talents.